Archive for September, 2009

Today is a goodbye day. Friends are leaving, and they asked me to bake a pastiera for them. I am leaving Wales soon as well, and this dish will be mixed with joy and tears.
It is no tragedy, life does go on, but it is the end of a lifestyle I have loved, of seeing my friends every night, of living by the sea at least for a while.

In this group of people I have become more than ever ‘the one who cooks’, and it has been really rewarding for me to have the privilege of cooking for this bunch of lovely, life hungry, glutton people. I love preparing enormous amounts of food and watching it disappear. I love a table with 15 persons on it turning silent when they start eating each and every course. I loved my house, with the dining room in the kitchen, so they had to stay there and I could prepare last minute dishes without leaving the conversation, and they could peep at the rest of the dinner and start drooling over dessert from the starters. I love the fact that many of them are vegetarian, so I can use the ingredients I love the most.